


Happy Lovers Day

by IrenkaFeralKitty



Series: A Canto Bight Wedding [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Baddies get blown up, Blaster mechanics, M/M, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Sort maybe graphic description of how they got blown up, valentine's day fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 22:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17858315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrenkaFeralKitty/pseuds/IrenkaFeralKitty
Summary: Rogue Flight rushes to rescue Hobbie and Zev Senesca from an Imperial facility on a very special day. 0ABY.





	Happy Lovers Day

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd.

Wes watched anxiously as Wedge and Luke passed macrobinoculars back and forth to study the Imperial outpost where Hobbie and Zev Senesca were imprisoned.

Red Flight had been making a routine sweep of one of the possible travel routes for High Command when they’d detected Imperial comm activity. While Renegade Flight went after the receiver, Nar had ordered the Rogues to take out the sender and gather whatever data possible. Their initial sweep of the planet had resulted in both Hobbie and Zev being shot down by a heavy ground point-defense system.

It had taken four days for the remaining Rogues to approach the outpost on foot. Their only comfort was that Luke had knocked out the outpost’s long range antenna before fleeing, so for now, no one beyond this remote planet knew that two Rebels had been captured.

Just because no one from Imperial Intelligence had arrived, however, didn’t mean that Hobbie and Zev weren’t probably being subjected to horrible torture while their captors tried to extract information from them.

“Do we have a plan yet?” Celchu suddenly hissed. It looked like he wasn’t the only one feeling anxious. “I’m tired of babysitting Janson while you two plot.”

“I do not need babysitting,” Wes growled, jabbing an elbow sideways into Celchu’s side and almost slipping on the damp ground cover. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m twenty years old?”

“Finish growing and I might believe you,” Celchu snapped back.

“I’ve been in the Rebellion longer than you have!”

“And I’ve had a proper military career.”

“Quiet, both of you,” Wedge said in a low voice, twisting around to glare at them both. Like them, he was lying on his stomach staring out at their target. “We’re going to free both of them. Stop taking your frustration out on each other.”

“He started it,” Wes muttered, shooting a glare at the other pilot. Celchu had been picking on him for months ever since he’d joined the Rebellion.

“We need a way to get inside.” Luke continued squinting through the macrobinoculars, apparently ignoring the brief dispute behind him. “We have their patrol schedule down and we should be able to get around them pretty easily. I just wish we could take more time trying to find a secondary entrance.”

Wes wiggled forward, shoving Wedge to the side as he squeezed between the two officers. For once, it paid to be the smallest pilot in Red Squadron. He took the macrobinoculars when Luke offered them over and looked for himself at the situation.

The facility was on the small size for an Imperial installation, but still substantial enough to have several tens of stormtroopers assigned to guard it. The broken remains of the antenna were being repaired on top of the base but it seemed to be slow going. A squad of four stormtroopers appeared from around the corner of the blocky building, marching in lockstep as they made their rounds, passing by the lone entrance without even glancing at the handful of troopers stationed there.

And then, Wes saw what was causing Luke and Wedge so much consternation. An E-Web heavy repeating blaster had been set-up next to the door with a fireteam on standby to take out the Rebels forces lurking in the woods surrounding the base.

“What is it?” Celchu hissed from behind him.

“E-Web guarding the door,” Wedge said.

“And none of us are carrying any explosives,” Luke added grimmly.

Wes pursed his lips for a moment. “You’re getting pretty good at deflecting blaster shots during practice,” he said. “Do you think you could deflect shots from the E-Web?”

There was a faint hissing as Luke sucked in some air. Taking the macrobinoculars, he peered out again. “I’m not sure,” he admitted after a moment. “I haven’t exactly gotten to practice that trick in combat, let alone against blasts that strong.”

“One mistake and you’re dead,” Wedge said grimly.

A idea was growing in Wes’s mind. Leaning forward a bit more on his forearms, he studied the terrain between them and the base. There was plenty of coverage for what he had in mind.

Wedge must have recognized something about his expression. “Wes?”

“I think I might have a way to take out the gunner, at least. Maybe the E-Web, too. It’s dangerous, though.”

“How dangerous?” Luke asked.

Chewing on his lower lip, Wes held his hand out for the macrobinoculars, then toggled the distance calculator between their spot and the door as he swept the viewer across the ground ahead of them. “If I don’t do it right, I’ll blow us all up. But if I do it right, there’ll be enough confusion that we can rush the base and get inside.”

Wedge looked alarmed. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

“More importantly, have you done it before?”

Suppressing a grimace, Wes nodded to Luke. Trust a Jedi-in-training to get right to the heart of the matter. “Once. Under supervision. As to what exactly I’m thinking… Well, you’ll be happier if I don’t tell you ahead of time.”

“Are you serious?” Celchu muttered incredulously.

Wes pushed back the urge to kick him in his stupid handsome face. “Look, if you know another way to get us inside, I’m all for it. But if not… Well, I can make the shot.”

“And take out the E-Web.”

“If I can get within throwing distance, yeah.”

Luke studied him for a moment, piercing blue eyes staring hard. It was hard not to squirm under that intense gaze. Finally, he nodded. “What do you need?”

* * *

 Wedge watched with growing alarm as Wes messed with his weapon’s actuating blaster module and the focusing crystal. He’d gotten to work after they’d carefully crept closer to the base, much closer than was comfortable. The forest canopy was much thinner overhead and all it would take was one flyover for them to be spotted. Assuming Wes didn’t blow them all up before then.

His gut turned over as Wes turned his attention to the blaster’s power pack, specifically, the power and gas outputs that everyone knew you were never, ever supposed to tamper with. Despite the very real possibility that one wrong move could trigger a sudden, and explosive, release of the stored matter, Wes’s hands were steady and sure.

For a brief moment, Wes’s apparent youth clashed with with the deadly seriousness of his task. The other pilot might only have been two years younger than Wedge (and the same age as Luke), but he looked much younger, especially since he’d only recently started to finally fill out.

Wes suddenly set down the multitool he’d borrowed from Luke and began reassembling his blaster, sure fingers checking each connection as the weapon came back together. He performed one final visual inspection once the weapon was ready, then looked up, nodding at Wedge.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Wedge murmured. As Wes shifted into position, Wedge suddenly realized he could smell ozone and the distinctive scent of an overheating blaster. Gritting his teeth, he fixed the macrobinoculars on the E-Web team.

The blaster sounded twice, the short, sharp, high pitched sound piercing the air. Then, surging to his feet, Wes rotated his arm back before snapping it forward, sending the overheating weapon soaring towards the Imperial outpost.

Staring through the macrobinoculars viewfinder, Wedge’s jaw fell agape a he saw the E-Web team was hit with Wes’s precise shots. The impact was accompanied by a horrifyingly wet sound that roared through the area as the stormtroopers literally exploded. Moments later, the blaster, flying through the air with deadly accuracy, landed at the base of the E-Web just as the overheating weapon reached critical. The tibanna gas inside the powerpack ignited as the stored energy sparked and instantly, the front of the outpost was engulfed in a deadly column of fire.

“Move!” Luke roared, suddenly erupting from the brush, a shocked looking Tycho Celchu right on his heels.

Wes reached down and grabbed Wedge’s arm, hauling him to his feet so they could follow.

“What did you do?” Wedge shrieked as they raced towards the base.

“Took out all the safeties!” Wes shouted back with a cackle.

Suddenly, the patrolling stormtroopers came sprinting back around the building, blasters firing. Luke’s lightsaber ignited, the shimmering blue blade swinging and knocking back the incoming bolts.

“We’ve got ‘em!” Wes shouted gleefully and Wedge drew his own lips back in a savage grin. This base was going to be theirs.

* * *

Hours later, Zev and Hobbie stared at Wes in disbelief while he and Wedge worked on patching up their injuries.

“Blasters don’t make people explode,” Zev said incredulously. “I’ve shot plenty of stormtroopers and not one of them exploded, leaving just a pair of legs behind!”

Wes snorted as he helped Hobbie pin his empty sleeve out of the way. “They can if you take out the safeties.”

“What does that even mean?” Hobbie demanded. He carefully raised his stump so Wes could tug the sleeve straigt, wincing slightly as it caused the bruised muscles to pull.

“I can’t believe they broke your prosthetic,” Wes said in disgust as Hobbie tested the limits of his current motion. When his wingmate let out an impatient sound, Wes rolled his eyes. “Blasters are nice, safe weapons as long as you don’t mess with them. When you fire them, the bolts are actually relatively low powered compared to what they could do without the restraining safeties that come standard. Without those, you’re not firing a blaster bolt as much as you are a particle beam.”

“Meaning, what, exactly?” Wedge asked, suddenly uneasy. He couldn’t stop seeing the stormtroopers’ bodies erupt into a fine red mist. Still looking at Wes, he helped Zev ease his flightsuit up over his shoulders, mindful of the man’s bruised ribs.

Wes shrugged. “Particle beams cause a huge amount of damage and the wounds expand even more if the target uses a fluid hydraulic system like humans do. Add in the heat of the blast superheating the inside of the wound and bone fracturing like a thermal detonator, then the next thing you know, you basically have a pipe bomb going off inside the body. Hit a limb and you get explosive amputation. Hit the torso and everything from the hips up just sort of… evaporates.

“The downside, of course,” he continued, looking thoughtful, “is that very few blasters are built to withstand firing particle beams, which is why I had to be close enough to chuck it at the E-Web so that when the tibanna gas ignited the explosion would do something useful."

Silence fell on the room. The few undamaged control panels were slowly flickering back to life as power was fully restored to the base.

“How the hell did you learn all this?” Zev demanded, looking more than a little horrified.

A sheepish expression crept over Wes’s face. “I was messing around with an old blaster pistol and my dad decided I needed a hands-on lesson on just how wrong that could go. Some predators had been going after some of our herdbeasts so we set up a hunters blind on the property and, well. I learned just what you can get a blaster to do besides just shoot blaster bolts.”

“Everytime you tell a story from your family’s farm, it sounds more and more fake,” Hobbie pronounced after a moment.

“I’m going to take you there someday,” Wes promised. “You on a farm will be almost as funny as taking Celchu would be.”

“You’re not taking me anywhere,” Celchu said as he and Luke returned to the room.

“What’s our status?” Wedge asked.

After sparing a brief glare at Wes, Celchu started his report. “Power’s back and the surviving Imps are still locked up. Artoo-Deeto’s leading the other astromechs in bringing our X-Wings here and we can set them to doing the preflight on the outpost’s emergency shuttle once they land.”

Luke gave the former captives an apologetic look. “Sorry, Hobbie, Zev. Your ships are too badly damaged for you to fly out in. We’ll load everything we can onto the shuttle and see what the mechanics say when we get back to base. For now, though, we can all sit and relax some. We’ll use one of the X-Wings to relay a message to Nar and get clearance from Command to bring the shuttle in.”

“In the meantime,” Wes interjected, mischief flickering in his eyes. “Do you know why it was so important that we had to rescue Hobbie and Zev today? And not yesterday or tomorrow?”

“What, was your ability to incinerate stormtroopers somehow going to be affected if we’d gotten here on a different day?” Celchu asked somewhat peevishly.

Wes gave the other pilot an exasperated look. “Hush, you. Today is a very special day.”

“You little- Shut up,” Hobbie suddenly hissed, glaring.

The menace in Hobbie’s voice didn’t deter Wes in the slightest. Grinning, he continued. “The entire galaxy paused on this very day to recognize a momentous occasion.”

“I hate you.”

“Today’s Hobbie’s birthday!”

There was a brief pause, then Celchu snapped his fingers. “It is, isn’t it?” He grinned at Hobbie. “Happy birthday. I hope today was all you could have ever wanted.”

Hobbie shifted his dark glare from Wes to Celchu. “I’ve beaten, interrogated, stripped of my prosthetic arm, and my X-Wing’s too broken to fly. What in hell is good about any of this?”

“We discovered Wes has hidden talents?” Luke suggested, a hint of a smile crossing his face. “We’ve also taken control of an Imperial relay facility.”

“And you’re going to get an exclusive chauffeured trip back to Command with limited sightseeing options,” Wedge added.

Hobbie let lose a choice selection of words, colorfully informing them just what he thought of their suggestions.

“Aaaand,” Wes finally continued, grinning widely, “today is even more special on Ralltiir than just being Hobbie’s birthday, isn’t it?” He clasped his hands in front of his chest and gave Hobbie an expectant look.

A fresh flurry of expletives answered him. “Don’t you dare,” Hobbie hissed.

Ignoring the threatening tone, Wes looked at the others with growing exasperation. “Oh, come on. We were just on Ralltiir. I mean, not Zev, of course. But the rest of us where. Don’t tell me you didn’t see all the ads for the upcoming planetary holiday?”

“We were… a bit distracted,” Luke said.

Ralltiir was still a sensitive topic. It was where Sarkli had betrayed them and that wound was still very fresh.

Regardless of the bruised feelings around him, Wes pushed on. “There were signs everywhere in all sorts of shades red and pink, all sorts of sweets and cute things going on sale, jewelry and fancy dining ads, all talking about-“

“Finish that sentence and you should never go to sleep feeling safe ever again.”

“Lovers Day on Ralltiir!”

Zev burst out laughing. “You’re joking! Hobbie was born on a day to celebrate, what, love and relationships?”

“The obvious next step is to secure Hobbie a relationship right away.” Wes looked around with a solemn expression. “Since it’ll be at least a day until we’re back at base, I nominate Celchu. You know, keep the blondes together. It’s… aesthetics, or something.”

“You wouldn’t know aesthetics if a paint swatch walked up and slapped you in the face,” Celchu replied dryly.

“Why don’t you volunteer, Wes?” Luke asked innocently. “You’re the one who realized how important today was, after all.”

“Luke, I couldn’t possibly! I’m in charge of planning. Much too busy arranging matters for Hobbie and whoever we hook him up with.”

“Shut up, you mynock,” Hobbie interjected. He planted his lone arm on his hip, looking somewhat unbalanced (not to mention bruised all over). “I don’t need any of you to help me. I’m already-”Wes perked up, eyes gleaming. Suddenly, Hobbie remembered _The Bet_ and hastily modified his next words. The last thing he wanted to do was give Wes an opening to claim victory.

“-taking care of things myself. So butt out.”

“Oh? Sounds like you have your eye on someone,” Wedge said in a teasing voice.

Hobbie leveled a furious glare. “You’re all a bunch of gossiping homemakers. You can take Lovers Day and shove it-”

Just then, Luke’s comm chirped, then broadcast the sonorous beeps and whistles of a droid speaking Binary.

“Artoo’s here,” Luke reported. “We’ll start prepping the ships. Wes, you mind flying the shuttle for Hobbie? Your astromech can fly Zev back to base in your X-Wing.”

“As long as he promises not to break it,” Wes agreed after a moment’s thought.

“Or what, you’ll explode me with a blaster?”

“I will short-sheet your bed while you’re still sleeping in it and leave you trapped for all time. Just see if I don’t.”

“A very deadly threat,” Wedge said. Shaking his head, he then glanced at Zev. “Do you want to come help or stay here?”

“Eh, I can oversee the droids in the shuttle,” Zev said, slowly pushing himself to his feet. He winced and swayed for a moment before catching his balance. “Hobbie’s the one they went after the most. Knew he was a defector somehow.”

“Alright. Wes, Hobbie,” Luke said, “comm us if something happens or a survivor makes himself known. I don’t think there are any, but there’s always a chance. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to depart otherwise.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Wes said cheerfully.

Once the others had left, Celchu lending a arm to Zev, Wes leaned against the console Hobbie was sitting in front of. “You almost spilled the beans,” he said gleefully. “I told you I’d win the bet. It’s just a matter of time.”

“I may have come close,” Hobbie countered, eyes narrowed, “but I didn’t cross the line. Meanwhile, you were practically vibrating. If Zev and I weren’t injured, you know Wedge and Luke would have demanded to know what has you so worked up. And then I’d be the winner.”

“You’re very confident. Too confident, I think.”

“I know I’m not going to lose.”

The two men glared at each other for several long moments. Wes’s face twitched, his lips quirking. Hobbie felt his shoulders start to shake, sending faint ripples of discomfort through him as he tried not to laugh.

A short snort suddenly tore its way out of Wes’s throat.“Who do you think is going to have the best reaction when they finally find out about Niopra?”

“Wedge,” Hobbie immediately replied. “I think Luke’s Jedi stuff has given him some kind of insight and Tycho will figure it out eventually. Zev, meanwhile, really doesn’t care all that much as long as it doesn’t affect our combat readiness.”

“While dear, sweet Wedge is a poster child for being oblivious.” Wes laughed. “Tell you what. To make up for all the Lovers Day jokes, I’ll buy all your drinks next time we’re in a tapcaf or something.”

“The next several times,” Hobbie countered. “You pulled the others into it,” he said pointedly.

“Fine, fine.” Wes leaned over to whisper directly into Hobbie’s ear. “And on the flight back to base, I’ll see what I can do to help you feel better. You know, the way a sympathetic spouse should.”

A hint of a faint blush appeared on Hobbie’s cheeks and the tips of his ears. Wes’s tone was suggestive enough to make it clear exactly what he was offering. Despite his embarrassment, Hobbie reached out and tugged the front of Wes’s tunic, pulling him closer. “Maybe I will have a good birthday after all.”

“And a happy Lovers Day.”

Smiling, Wes leaned in and kissed him.


End file.
